ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the persistence and vitality in contemporary Paulistano Portuguese of what has been traditionally considered "rural, redneck variants" – both in laymen's and linguists' discourse – arguing that the children of migrants from rural areas have brought about changes in these variants' social meanings within the urban scenario. It analyzes the persistence of rural variants in native Paulistanos' speech by describing the social embedding of two linguistic features, nonstandard subject-verb agreement and coda /r/ retroflexion. The chapter argues that the vitality of these variants follows their acquisition of new social meanings, especially among working-class youth, in constant contact with both the speech of the natives and the migrants. It shows that traditionally considered "rural, redneck" variants, namely 1PP nonstandard agreement and retroflex coda /r/, are still present in urban Sao Paulo – mainly in the speech of certain groups of working-class youth living in peripheral areas composed predominantly by internal migrants from the surrounding countryside and the Northeast.
